I wasn't paying attention. My head was pounding. I was reaching to turn down the volume of the radio. I wasn't watching the road; I know the other driver wasn't either. The semi tuck blindly pulled out on to the two lane highway. It was far too late for either of us; there wasn't a move that I could make to save myself. I don't know if I screamed; I'm not really sure what I did. I think I braced myself on the steering wheel; I braced myself in preparation for tons of force that would collide with my SUV. I think I prayed that this would go quickly, that it wouldn't be as bad as I was imagining.
"Gil, I need you to come out to an accident scene. It's a bad one," Brass said as he stood in the doorway of my office.
"Any DBs?" I asked as I began to gather assignments for the team. We were waiting for Sara. Sara had been out in the desert; she was working on a skeleton found amongst the mountains and hills. She called hours earlier saying that she was running right on schedule. I had asked the team to wait for her.
"Not yet, but Gil, it was Sara's Tahoe that was hit," Brass said softly. I needed to strain to hear him. I could feel my stomach drop to my knees. For a moment, I wondered what I should do. I had no idea what to say to Brass, let alone the people that formed a family around this lab.
"She's a lucky girl. She held on for so long, while the firefighters cut open her car to free her. Gil, she's at Desert Palms. Sara needed to be airlifted there. I didn't want to tell you this on the phone; I didn't want to be the one to tell you," Brass rambled. I sat dumbfounded trying to comprehend what he was saying.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The truck driver said that his brakes failed; I think he's drunk. I'll need one of your CSIs to go draw the blood and process it," Brass said, "Gil, Sara wasn't doing good when the helicopter left. I'm really sorry."
I felt sick. It sickened me that this would become our case. It sickened me that Sara offered to take the case this afternoon. It wasn't even her day to be on-call. It was my turn, but I was spending the afternoon with my mother. I could barely breathe. I think Brass said something about it being a tragedy. I knew that he must be feeling something intense to express any emotion; I knew that I felt like my heart had stopped.
I didn't want to tell them. I didn't want to be the person to tell them that Sara was in the hospital . . . that we needed to investigate the scene. They were a family. They spent nearly all their time together. We went out to breakfast in the morning. I knew them more intimately than I knew anyone else. I didn't want to be the one.
"Gil, I'll go tell them. They are all waiting for assignment. You should take a few minutes," Brass said as he vacated the doorway.
"Thank you," I replied. I tried to suppress my emotions. I tried to prepare myself to see the accident scene. I tried to prepare myself to go draw the blood of a man that might have killed Sara. It should have been me.